Trading
Trading is the interaction between players mutually willing to offer their goods for the others'. Players willing to trade generally indicate offers on their Wish List. For increased effectiveness, or if players can offer more monsters than their wish list can display, players will often offer their goods as advertisements on other players' profiles or through the Dark Summoner Forum/e-mail if the character limit of their advertisement exceeds the 140 limit. The trading feature shares a complex relationship with the auction feature: While the auction feature is more anonymous with bids and offers a widespread audience, it costs a minimum of 10.000 gold, and attention is given only to those who pay the most and least (players can scroll to the end and look backwards). Bids offered are also locked in the auction, unable to be further interacted with until the auction is finished or the bid is dismissed. Trading also has advantages in player interactions. Trading communities are often friendly and lax with costs, bringing about a more personal feel to exchanging goods. A player wishing to catalogue or engage in other suitably special interactions can also find more flexibility in the trading system, where communication is much more easily available (auction owners' name displays are not links, and they will pick the highest bid as opposed to someone's plea to catalogue the monster). See: Game Terms for short-hand terminology. Currency Energy Potions: During trades and auctions, it is commonly accepted that energy potions are the main form of currency. Players may communicate to others that they are "selling" a good, meaning that they will only trade their monster for refill items (preferably energy potions). Generally, monsters are assigned an appropriate cost based on its level, rank, ability, ability level, and stats. Battle Potions: These are the second most valuable currency, and are worth less than energy potions, ranging on ratios between 5:1 to 10:1. This currency, however, is not to be offered in extreme quantities, as it may be hard to find trades for the more desirable Energy Potions, drastically lowering the marginal cost of the Battle Potions past the threshold. Elixirs: Most people are willing to accept the cost of an elixir as the sum of the former two items. However, since the elixir offers less flexibility in use than a Battle Potion and an Energy Potion, they may be valued at simply the Energy Potion (the Battle Potion's cost is insignificant). Lord crystals: These are rarely used as currency, but when offered, scale in value with the energy cost required to obtain the crystal. A Lord of Massacre Crystal is insignificant in cost, but a Lord of Deception Crystal is quite expensive. (NEEDS CONFIRMATION) Gold: Exclusively available for trade through the auction house, gold is fairly low in value compared to any other currency because of its high supply. A possible ratio that may be used is 100,000 gold to 1 EP. However, it should be noted that it is impractical and uncommon for people to bid large amounts of gold such as 1,000,000,000(10,000 EP worth of gold). Monster Limit +: These items are limited to events, making them quite rare, even more so in trade due to a players' interest to use them. Once a player's monster capacity is at its desired level, the player may decide to trade all future Monster Limit +s. The value is variable, dependent on the agreement between the trading players (NEEDS CONFIRMATION) Skill Point Reset: The Store price of the Skill Point Reset is likely lower than the trade price due to free players' inability to purchase soul points. A reasonable price, however, must be between 15 EP and 15BP (they are equal in store value). Name Change: Being very rare in the store, a Name Change can be very overpriced. Offers by players can be around 35 EP. Monster Costs *C - C+ monsters have no abilities, nor are particularly powerful, making them cost virtually nothing *B - B+ monsters are generally only sold/traded for their abilities. The ability monsters generally go for 3/4/5 monsters/ 1ep. Certain rare skills, such as Agility Up and Beast Down can be costlier due to limited availability and high demand. *A - A+ monsters can range from 1 EP to about 40 EP(with exceptions such as Victoria+). Weak monsters such as Great Horned Warrior and Blood Blob are on the low end, while elite monsters such as Balrog of Rage can be quite expensive(20 EP each). Monsters introduced during events that assist a summoner during the event(aka progression monsters) are priced highly due to their assistance in saving energy and/or battle points during events. It should be noted that skill level is an important part in calculating the value of a monster. Note: A's are able to rank up by evolution (sacrificing a monster to the exact same monster to become +), meaning that A+ monsters are worth two A monsters of the same type. *AA - AA+ monsters are worth between 50 EP and 400+ EP, depending primarily on skill.